ESSAY REPORT (ART & DESIGN HISTORY)

READING REPORT

[VINCENT VAN GOGH]

1-      1.1 Introduction

  Why do I pick Vincent van Gogh for my research essay? It is because Vincent van Gogh has always been one of my favorite artist ever since I started my drawing lesson. I was amazed and surprised when I was exposed to his paintings by my art teacher, his paintings contain so much emotions, every brushstroke, every color has its own definition, its meaning behind it. It is like the artist is trying to convey a message to us, maybe about his melancholic life, his desperate emotion or his loneliness. As a little 6-year-old child, I was filled with curiosity about the messages inside his paintings and I am determined to find out the answers that I seek for during my childhood days in my research essay. This is the time for me to reveal the answers for all the ‘question marks’ surrounding me about Vincent van Gogh.

  Not only his art style that interest me personally, even his personal life triggers my curiosity. Vincent van Gogh’s life was not a happy life and he only received all the attentions and appreciation that he carved for after his miserable death. Everything in his life was not fine, he could not enjoy a love life as he thought it was fate that was restricting him from love, due to a huge number of failed romantic attempts. He was poor to even afford a proper meal, although he usually spent all his allowance for art materials. He suffered from mental diseases which only painting and drawing can help control it. However, the only thing that kept him in sane was the support from his brother, Theodore and all his art. This is one of the reason why Vincent van Gogh had my attention for me to construct a research essay about him, his sad life had gotten my attention.

  Vincent van Gogh is famous for his unique art style. However, what I respect about him is because of his determination and his will to never give up in pursuing his dreams. This is also why I pick him as the artist for my research essay. Van Gogh has values of a determined artist which follows his own pace and style when constructing a painting or drawing even though his art does not receive the favor of the people from that period. That did not stop him from proceeding with his own unique techniques and style, he did not carve for attention from others and all he wanted was to indulge himself in the pleasure of his art. At the age of 27, throwing away his opportunity to have a full time career and begin his journey as an artist. Who would have known that this ‘ordinary guy’ would become a famous artist of decades and the one who inspire the birth of other famous artist such as Pablo Picasso. Van Gogh is special and a person who holds the value of a true artist. An artist with passion and willing to dedicate all his time and energy for his art. This is why I chose him.

  Vincent van Gogh is the artist that I choose for my research essay. 

2-      2.1 Vincent van Gogh’s Life and Social Background

Vincent Willem van Gogh, also known as Van Gogh, was brought to this world on 30^th of March, 1853 in the Brabant Village of Zundert, Netherlands. However, he died young, which is 37, he was already mentally unstable and was suffering from extreme depression, negativity and loneliness during his final period. He passed away on 29^th of July, 1890 due to a suicide, where he shot himself in the chest with a pistol after walking into a wheat field in Auvers-sur-Oise. Van Gogh’s whole life was a melancholic, he didn’t receive the fame or attention that he deserved when he was still alive and breathing, instead he and his art ‘magically’ grew insanely famous after his death when his brother’s, Theodore’s wife, Johanna Van Gogh, displayed a huge number of his artworks with exhibition loans to museums all over the world. Therefore, Vincent van Gogh has become one of the famous artist in the world even after decades as his unique artworks continues to surprise and impress the new generations.

  Going back to Van Gogh’s life, Van Gogh was single. He had a couple of romantic attempts but all them failed to move on with his life. He was turned down by various ladies in his life until he met Clasina Maria Hoornik, a pregnant prostitute along with her daughter in The Hauge. He offered them assistance by moving them into his little studio. His desire to have a family on his own was so close to success until everything turned into a disaster and both of them went their separate ways, which Van Gogh moved to Drenthe on his own. After that, he had a relationship with Agostina Segatori, an Italian owner of a restaurant, but things didn’t go well with the both of them and they broke up after a few months. Van Gogh began to feel depressed and accepted his fate to not have the love they he wished for.

  Van Gogh was a clerk, teacher and preacher before he devoted himself to art at the age of 27 and sought to become an artist on his own after his brother, Theodore (also known as Theo) encouraged him to concentrate on his art as Theo acted as a supplier for him. Theo started sending money to Vincent from time to time in order for him to pursue his art career. Without proper guidance from other artists, Van Gogh developed his own art style and drawing techniques by reading books such as [Travaux des Champs] by Jean Francois Millet and [Cours de dessin] by Charles Bargue. However, he did enroll to an academy of art in Antwerp but he was unsatisfied with their teachings, deeming it too ‘traditional’ for him and his personal art style.

  Van Gogh suffered from various mental illness and he was constantly sent to the hospital due to poor health and dangerous attempts, one of the most well-known incident of him was him cutting off his own ear and offering it to a prostitute. His health was horrible as he spent most of his expenses on paint and art materials instead of getting a proper meal of his own. Van Gogh found it really hard for him to communicate with other artist due to the difference in style as he often lost his temper at them and most of the artist could not stand his bickering and left. He lived a poor life as his art was not well-received by the people during his era when impressionism was the trend and people favors on the colors of the painting while the colors on his painting was dark and dull.

  Van Gogh had done a total of 900 paintings, 1100 drawings and sketches. However, he only sold one during his lifetime, which explains his financial condition during his lifetime.

2.2 The Art Movement Involved.

  The art movement involved in Vincent van Gogh’s artworks is Post-Impressionism. Post-impressionism came after the impressionism art movement. Instead of following the strict ‘rules’ of the impressionism, some artist decided to create their own ‘rules’ in their artwork, thus the birth of post-impressionism. Artists who are involved in this art movement are known as post-impressionist, examples of the representative of post-impressionist are Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat, Vincent van Gogh and many more. In this art movement, artist tends to draw with their own free will without the restrains of contents like stories, legends or religions. They draw to express their emotions, to convey messages thru their artworks by using the ‘language’ of colors, lines, brushstrokes and more. Their artworks are more symbolic compare to the artworks did with the impressionism movement, which convey the ideas and message straightforward thru optical. Every post-impressionist has their very own unique way to express themselves in their artwork, such as Vincent van Gogh who favors the use of rough, curvy brushstrokes and dull colors to show his sadness in his artworks.

  In my opinion, I think that post-impressionism artworks are very special in their own way, some may think that there are not as beautiful as they are being described by the art critics, however, each and every one of them holds different feelings, emotions or even visions of the artist. They are imaginary and allows us to’ run wild’ with our imagination upon looking at the artworks. They don’t fix our imagination but instead it allows us to understand differently when we alter our perspective of viewing or understanding. Some might think the painting is trying to express extreme loneliness; Some might think that the painting is trying to express desperation; Some might think that the painting is trying to show how disappointed the artists were. It is just an endless assumption of these paintings, no one except for these artists really understand what were they trying to show to the world. Therefore, I find this art movement interesting because it allows my imagination to roam upon analyzing each art piece.

2.3 Personal Artistic Style

  Vincent van Gogh’s personal artistic style is idiosyncratic, one-of-a-kind. Van Gogh’s painting seems ‘abnormal’ in some way as we don’t usually see the environment or curvy skies like how he painted in his landscapes paintings. However, that’s his personal style to express the beauty of nature and at the same time, his emotions. His artworks seemed like it was painted very ‘casually’ and easily by the master himself, especially in nature paintings. However, it is not. Even though other artists are able to mimic his painting easily, but the emotions of the painting will never be presented in the ‘fake’ version of the painting. That is what makes Vincent van Gogh, the unreplaceable Vincent van Gogh. The way how he ‘played’ and apply the colors, create the visible and rough brushstrokes, the curvy lines are what makes his painting so easy to recognize by the public. All the twisting and curling in the paintings really show the presence of his artistic style. Van Gogh favors dull colors instead of striking and bright colors therefore his painting usually brings out a negative vibe, this explains his melancholic life. His paintings seem rough because of the visible strokes.

  In my personal opinion regarding his personal artistic style is his painting sometimes seems rather ‘childish’ such as “Bedroom in Arles” and sometimes his vision seems like it’s from a little child. The vision of the environment in his painting, it’s not realistic and something that adults seldom or never even witness or imagine in their head. However, it requires the skills of an experienced artist in order to execute such vision onto a canvas, maybe some who doesn’t know art might think that his art is ‘absurd’ but to those who truly understand the language of arts, all of his art is masterpiece.

2.4 Artworks Critique

  [The Starry Night]

  The size of the well-known “The Starry Night” is 921cm(Width) x 737cm(Height), an oil on canvas painting. The year when this magnificent masterpiece was created was year 1889 and it is currently kept in Museum of Modern Art, New York.

   In this painting by Van Gogh, instead of painting with guidelines, he seemed to have painted it without it and freely as he felt like. His lines or strokes seemed to be executed on the canvas without any restrain as we can notice all the twist and curvy lines in his painting which shows a form of enjoyment or freedom while painting this masterpiece. The colors that he used for this painting is mostly dark and dull colors, except for the lights on each houses, the stars and the moon which he used bright colors to show the contrast. Other than that, he seemed to be aware of the distribution of space and the placing of the ‘objects’ in this painting, such as the cypress tree, the village, the stars and the moon. This is can be clearly seen in this painting as we don’t feel any uncomfortable feeling or emotions when looking at this painting, it feels like everything is in its right place to enhance the beauty of this painting and its night view. This is one of the most frequent way and style of Vincent van Gogh to express his emotions and to show his love and appreciation for nature.

  Before painting The Starry Night, Van Gogh suffered from a mental breakdown and this is probably the most relevant cause of him to start painting this masterpiece. The Starry Night was painted from Van Gogh’s imagination and most probably from his observation on the night skies frequently after moving out from the city. The huge black object in the painting is known as the cypress tree, the cypress tree is often symbolized as death and negativity. The Starry Night shows sadness and depressed emotion as seen in the art elements, such as color choice and lines made by the artist. In my opinion, I think that although Van Gogh is suffering from a mental breakdown when he was creating this artwork, however he might still have hope in life as that might be the reason why he added stars and moon in the night skies instead of making it dark and dull only. Bright color is often symbolized as a positive emotion and adding it to the painting as brings the message of slight hope or positivity in it. This might also act as a contrast for the cypress tree which represent negativity. There might also be another hypothesis about the presence of the stars in this painting is Van Gogh might aim to enhance the beauty of nature and didn’t wish to ‘destroy’ it by making it filled with negativity only.

  According to my personal view of this painting, I find this painting very inspiring and very successful. I personally favor this painting when being compared to the other works. Why? This is because I see my own emotions in it as well, I can feel the emotions that he is trying to express out thru this painting and I somehow understands his misery or his hope. I would assume this painting as a successful one for me because I like the combination of the colors which clearly enhance the magnificent view of nature in his own language. According to Vincent van Gogh: The Starry Night by Richard Thomson, the action of combining all the elements of a night sky which is its stillness, sublimity and infinitude to evoke the emotions of peace and humility into us. Vincent van Gogh has been using his own way to express all these in The Starry Night, although painted with only a brief observation and memory, Van Gogh is still capable of fulfilling all the requirements which a night view requires while proceeding with adding more elements which contains his own unique style to make this painting one of his most successful painting in the world now.

 [The Potato Eaters]

  The size of The Potato Eaters is 82cm x 114cm and its medium used was also an oil in canvas. This painting was created around April to May in 1885 in Nuenen, The Netherlands and it is currently kept in Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

  This painting is sort of different from what Van Gogh’s usual art style, probably because it was his first painting. When he strived to be a great artist, he tried to challenge himself with a new style of painting in order to increase his growth in art drastically. Therefore, “The Potato Eaters” was created to prove his growth. When he was creating this painting, Van Gogh ‘threw’ away the rule of a correct anatomy of a human and technical perfection, instead he focused more on the dark colors and the actions of the 5 figures in the frame. This is why the facial expressions and the body shape of each of every person in the frame looks weird and unnatural. The rough stokes that proved Van Gogh’s personal art style is barely seen in this painting, however, the details are emphasized instead through his smooth and little brush strokes and lines. Van Gogh had tried to ‘shrink’ the volume of the little room by using dark colors, making it look small and old instead of spacious. This is often used to show the poorness of an individual or a family. The space and the placing of each of the object and person is well done as viewers, such as myself don’t feel comfortable when looking at this painting due to the location of every single element in this painting. The dimly lighted lamp is used as a guideline for the artist to paint the shadows perfectly and it also shows the poverty-stricken of the family to use that little light to light up the dining table only and enjoy their meal together.

  Instead of creating a perfect drawing with perfect anatomy of a human and perfect technicality, Van Gogh tried to focus more on the mood and message that he was trying to bring through this drawing. This explains the dark tones of colors used to express the mood of the painting which of the unavailability of a family to enjoy a wealthy life but only to obtain a small amount of food in order to survive. Van Gogh painted this painting with earth colors like an unpeeled potato to show how the hard work of the people inside the painting, who worked day and night in order to obtain the ‘achievement’ on the dining table --- food. He tried to give out the message of the efforts and energy given by a normal family in order to earn their food earnestly instead of doing illegal activities such as stealing or robbing. This is a matter of honesty, hard work and also determination of the peoples to survive in harsh conditions such as deficiency of money in daily life. Van Gogh tried to express the harsh conditions faced by this family through the lighting and the space. He used dark tones to make the room less spacious and a little dimly lighted lamp to light up the small room. This brings the message that the peoples from that time couldn’t afford expensive lamps to place it everywhere in their little cottage. One thing about this painting which Van Gogh paid attention to was their facial expressions which looked sad and down. This probably shows the life of the poor who couldn’t do much about their condition but to only accept it and move on with it.

  According to my personal opinion regarding this painting is I don’t really like this painting that much because of the color used, however I like the message hidden in this painting that the artist tried to express. I personally like the details in the painting and the way he expresses the society with his own art, it seems to work perfectly well and brings out the right mood. The mood of the painting is very obvious and straightforward; Van Gogh doesn’t take a big turn to express his message like he always did in most of his paintings after this. We don’t really need to do much guessing regarding the mood and message of this painting. Just like how I don’t like about this painting, the people from Van Gogh’s era don’t really like this painting due to the dark colors and the incorrect anatomy of the figures present inside. However, The Potato Eaters is now one of Van Gogh most famous painting and was one of Van Gogh most satisfying artwork of all time.

 [Almond Blossom]

  The size of the ‘Almond Blossom’ is 73.3cm x 92.4cm. An oil on canvas painting which is now being kept in the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. This art piece is painted around February in the year of 1890 in Saint-Remy-de-Provence, France.

  Van Gogh was fond of the Japanese art style, thus inspiring him to paint a painting of blossom with that unique style. This art style is the complete opposite of what Van Gogh has been doing all the time due to its smooth and thin strokes and much more detail. We all know that Van Gogh usually paints his painting with rough brushstrokes and curvy lines to express his usual negative emotions. It’s also quite rare for Van Gogh to paint such visible bold outlines in his painting. The colors used in this painting seems cool and calming with the sky blue background and natural light colors to paint each flower. If you look closer, you will notice that every flower has its own special detail and it’s not just ‘randomly’ drawn. The combination of the colors blend in perfectly to form a harmonious feeling upon looking at the painting.

  This painting has a very special existence; it’s painted by Van Gogh to celebrate the birth of his nephew, Theo’s and Jo’s child. Van Gogh choose the almond tree as his subject is because almond tree flowers earlier thus representing the birth of a new life. Van Gogh has given this painting as gift to his brother for the birth of Vincent Willem, the new born child. This painting is a very special element to show how Van Gogh cared and loved his family, especially his brother, Theo, as he painted this amazing artwork. This painting is the contrast of Van Gogh’s usual art style as it shows Van Gogh’s capabilities in painting with other style which brings out a complete different feeling. Unlike the negativity in his painting that he expressed frequently, this painting is filled with love and appreciation to his family and to nature.

  In my opinion, I love this painting a lot. It is a love at a first sight as I first ‘stumbled’ upon this wonderful painting. It surprised me to find out that this painting belongs to the well-known Vincent van Gogh. I like the calm and quiet feeling when I look at this painting, it’s not as dynamic as the others but instead its simplicity is what got my attention. It feels like the emotions in this simple painting is just pure love and enjoyment. This work is considered successful as a token of family love in the Van Gogh family.

  

3-      Conclusion

  Thru this research, I had realized the great existence of Vincent van Gogh and his legacy. I also found out some facts which I don’t know at the beginning, such as his love life, the reason why he cut off his own ear and most important of all, how big of a role his brother, Theo played in his life. Without Theo, Vincent might not be able to be the one we all know right now as Theo was the one who ‘pushed’ Vincent to step into an artist’s life and giving him all the support.

  Van Gogh’s way of doing things is what I respect the most about him. Although his art is not really popular during his era but he is still determined to finish up and continue to do what he is capable off. He was not letting the society to define his art or stopping him from painting with his ‘bombastic’ way. Life has been hard on him ever since he began his journey as an artist, although he could not take it in the end and ended up committing suicide. However, his art has been a mental support to keep him going till his death. Strong emotions often create a powerful painting.   

I will be sharing a little bit of my personal experience regarding Vincent Van Gogh. In my primary school years, I had tried to paint one of his most famous painting “The Starry Night” during my art class and I realized, it is not easy like how I imagined it to be. The color mixture, tone, depth and most important of all, the perspectives, it was tougher than I thought it would be. Therefore, that was when I know that, Vincent Van Gogh is truly a mysterious yet professional artist even though his arts seems ‘ordinary’ and simple, but the truth is he is an irreplaceable and truly amazing artist which I really look up to.   

4-      Bibliography

Book

·         Meier-Graefe, J. Vincent Van Gogh: A Biography. Manufactured in the United States of America: Dover Publication, 1987. Print.

Websites

·         Biography.com Editors. “Vincent van Gogh Biography.com”. biography.com/people/Vincent-van-gogh-9515695. A&E Television Networks. 14^th August. 2017. Web.

·         Voorhies, James. “Post-Impressionism.”. metmuseum.org/toah/hd/poim/hd_poim.htm.  In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000-. October. 2004. Web.

·         “Post Impressionism”. Artmovements.co.uk/postimpressionism.htm. Magic Web Solutions UK. Web.

·         Anirudh. “10 Most Famous Painting By Vincent Van Gogh”. Learnodo-newtonic.com/van-gogh-famous-paintings. Learnodo Newtonic. 24^th November. 2014. Web.

·         Dr. Noelle C. Paulson. “Van Gogh, The Starry Night”. khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/later-europe-and-americas/modernity-ap/a/van-gogh-the-starry-night. 2017 Khan Academy. Web.